Gorgeous Photos of DIY Science Experiments

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Caleb Charland's photos are like scientific demonstrations captured on camera. This one is titled Breakbeat with Sparkler and Metronome, which should explain a little about what you're seeing. Caleb Charland

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He takes all of his photos though a long exposure process. Here is One Hour With Candle and Clock Caleb Charland

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You're looking at a candle though a fishbowl. Caleb Charland

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Pouring Light is the product of pouring glow in the dark powder onto two slanted pieces of metal. The camera captures the dust's path as it travels through. Caleb Charland

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Cube with phosphorescent Powder Caleb Charland

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Glow in the Dark Powder on Sheet Film Caleb Charland

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Candle Through Crystal Ball Caleb Charland

For as long as Caleb Charland has been making art, he’s been doing it with science in mind. WIRED featured Charland’s work a few years back when he was in the midst of his first series of black and white scientific demonstrations. Now he’s back with a new set of photos, this time in color.

Charland’s new body of work isn’t a defined series—it doesn’t even have a name—but rather a compilation of his experimentation with new materials and processes. The photos are the result of hours of tinkering with fire, glow in the dark products and his signature long-exposure process.

Here you’re looking at Phosphorous in Fishbowl. Image: Caleb Charland

In the past, we’ve seen Charland experiment with light bulbs and candles, but his newest fascination is with a fine powdered dust that glows in the dark. Pieces like Pouring Light, shows a purplish glow coming from what looks like wall-mounted lights, but it’s actually the product of hours of pouring glow in the dark dust onto two slanted pieces of metal. The camera captured the light dust as it tumbled through a channel into a receptacle. Charland would pour the dust through the same path over and over again to create a vaporous glow that was strong enough to show up on film.

The photographer typically exposes his film for hours, depending on what kind of light source he’s working with. Most film is engineered to capture a moment between 1/10,000th of a second and 1 second. “Anywhere outside of those ranges the system kinds of breaks down,” he explains. It works to his benefit. The deep chemical colors he gets are fascinating in a clearly unnatural way.

It’s fun to image Charland’s studio as a mini science lab, though he’s quick to clarify that he’s not conducting scientific experiments so much as science-inspired art experiments. “If you did a science experiment and prove something, you’re going to get a hard fact and a yes or no answer,” he says. “Making art about it perpetuates the conversation, it asks more of a question than finds the answer.”